Subject: Re: [lojban] Dumb answers to good questions

From: "Adam Raizen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 16:45:02 +0200

la mark. cusku di'e

> Consider the question {mu'i ma la bab. darxi la fred.} "Why did Bob
> hit Fred?" A reasonable question. Reasonable answers include
> things like {mu'i le nu by. fengu} or {mu'i le nu fy. pu gletu le
> mensi be by} or whatever. But I could also just as easily answer
> {mu'i le nu fy. duksu leni barda le nu by. ka'e citka}. ("Why did
> he hit him? Well, he was too big to eat, and he couldn't wear him
> as a hat because he clashed with his shoes, and...") Or "Well, Jack
> was too far away/too big." These are all valid answers, but under
> many circumstances, they are completely unhelpful.

I don't think that this is a problem; if the motivation actually is
that he's too big or whatever, then it constitutes a valid and helpful
response. However, most of the time that type of thing isn't the
motivation.

> OK, a lot of
> Lojban permits answers that are unhelpful. But how do you ask more
> explicitly? Why did Bob HIT Fred (as opposed to kissing him or
> doing something else)? Why did Bob hit FRED (as opposed to Susan or
> Jolene)? I suppose {ba'e} *might* do the job, but I'm not sure it's
> specific enough. Stuff with {.enai lo drata} won't do it. Maybe
> Bob *did* hit Susan and Jolene (and I know why), but I want to know
> why Fred had to get popped.

I like to use prenexes for this: "le nu darxi zo'u mu'i ma la bab.
darxi la fred.", "la fred. zo'u mu'i ma la bab. darxi la fred.", etc.
(Maybe that 'le nu darxi' in the prenex should be a 'ka', or even an
all-ce'u ka! :-)

> One thing which I don't think would solve the problem completely,
> but would at least make a step towards it would be to have some UI
> word to flag what we're really asking about. Just as {do xu citka
> le nanba} and {do citka le nanba xu} specify precisely what's being
> asked about (but we can't do that with {mu'i ma} type questions).
> The obvious candidate would be {pau}: {mu'i ma la bab pau darxi la
> fred.} (why was it BOB that hit Fred?), {mu'ima la bab darxi pau la
> fred.} (why did Bob HIT Fred?), and {mu'ima la bab. darxi la fred.
> pau} (why was it FRED that Bob hit?). Still won't stop me from
> answering the second with "He wasn't hollow enough to live in," but
> that's life. I'm not sure why I'm not thinking {ba'e} here. Maybe
> "emphasis" isn't what's at stake here, but focus of the question.

I think that what you want here is 'kau', and that's how it's glossed
in the book (ch 11.8): "mu'i ma la bab. kau darxi la fred.", etc.
However, I'm reluctant to use it like this, because its meaning is so
different from q-kau. If 'kau' were used consistently like this,
'makau', etc. would remain a direct question, just with topic focus.
(Then again, maybe that's not a good enough reason.)

> You know, come to think of it, Hebrew (particularly Modern Hebrew)
> has a word that's used something like this: "davka." It doesn't
> translate very well. The closest I can come is "particularly."
> "Why did davka Bob have to hit Fred." (why *particularly* Bob?) "Why
> did Bob davka hit Fred?" (why hit and not kick), and so on. Yes,
> among some folks you would in fact use it in English sentences too.
> And there's the phrase "lav davka"/"not particularly" for saying
> things like "The example in the book where it says "noun" is lav
> davka; it could be any word."

If you want to put the emphasis on Bob like that ("davka Bob"), it's
probably not a motivation anymore so much as a reason (unless, I
suppose, someone had a motivation to pick out Bob to hit Fred). But
anyway, I think you can use "se steci" or "sarcu" for this: "ki'u ma
la bab. cu se steci le ka ce'u darxi le fred." This type of an
approach doesn't work as well when it's the selbri you want to
emphasize, though. Similarly: "le mupli ne ne'i le cukta zo'u le nu
pilno zoi zoi. noun .zoi na sarcu .i ka'e pilno ro valsi".

Hebrew also has another way to do it (though its use is grammatically
restricted): "Why did Bob hit FRED?" -> "Fred, lama Bob hirbits lo?"
("?פרד, למה בוב הרביץ לו"), which looks a lot like a Lojban prenex,
except that you have to specify what the relationship is between the
prenex and the rest of the sentence.

mu'o mi'e .adam.